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Unioto’s Jayla Campbell heads the ball around midfield at Circleville High School’s The Savings Bank Stadium on Saturday afternoon. The Shermans fell to the Tigers in a Division II sectional final by a 4-0 final.(Photo: Josh Anderson/For the Gazette)Buy Photo

CIRCLEVILLE- The 2016 campaign for Unioto’s girls soccer team has reached its end.

The Shermans battled and fought hard, but fell to the Circleville Tigers 4-0 in a Division II sectional final on Saturday afternoon.

“We’re both two really good teams,” Unioto coach Cara Rathkamp said. “We told the girls that whoever shows up and plays with the most heart, goes after the ball, is going to win. Unfortunately for us, we were a little asleep in the first half and it was a little too late once we woke up.”

Unioto (9-3-5) started the first 10 minutes penetrating the Tigers’ back row, looking for any gaps to get a clean shot off. They held a 3-0 shot on goal advantage early, but couldn’t connect on a goal. However, the entire game was about to turn upside down.

Circleville struck on the scoreboard off a throw-in that bounced off a Unioto defender and crossed the goal line for an own goal that gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead with 28:07 to play.

Four minutes later, Avery Delong connected on a goal off a cross pass that put the Tigers up 2-0 with 24:10 left.

The Tigers then found the net again, off another throw-in that bounced off a Shermans’ defender to push their lead to 3-0 with 21:06 left. The score remained that way until halftime.

“We had a lot of breakdowns in the first half,” Rathkamp said. “Having two own goals really took a lot out of us. That put our heads down a little bit and it’s tough to recover from that. But credit to Circleville. They played aggressive and won a lot of 50-50 balls and took chances away from us.”

“The Delong twins (Avery and Bryce) and number 23 (Rachel Branham),” Unioto coach Kendra Dalton said. “They were our big concerns coming into the game. They are three really aggressive players who can win the ball in the air. (Circleville’s) formation was a little funky as well, since they kept two defenders back very deep the entire time.”

Circleville had one more goal left in them and Delong finished the job, connecting with the back of the net for her second goal of the game with 35:26 left before they closed out the Shermans’ season.

“We haven’t seen many teams who were as aggressive as they were,” Dalton said. “They pushed through our defensive end of the field and they did it with a lot of power. We spent a lot of time on our end of the field because we didn’t possess the ball and couldn’t get to our attacking third.”

“The seniors were wonderful,” Dalton said. “Their work ethic has been great. They put their hearts into every single practice and worked as hard as possible. We wish them the best moving forward, and we’re going to miss them.”